Computers include one or more disk drives to store data. The stored data in a disk drive can be rewritten over the lifetime of the disk drive. Despite their relative longevity and reliability, many disk drives eventually fail and need to be replaced. In other cases, disk drives may need to be reformatted or recycled to be repurposed.
A failing disk drive may be returned to the manufacturer or replaced with a new disk drive. The disk drive of a computer may be overwritten or wiped out prior to being overwritten to install a new operating system or recycled for other users. When the disk drive needs to be replaced, repurposed, or returned to the manufacturer, the company has an elevated concern that sensitive data stored on the disk drive may be unknowingly leaked to a third party. Sensitive business information and data from customers or partners may be stored on the disk drive, and the company may be legally liable for a loss or leak of the sensitive data. If such sensitive data is leaked to a competitor or a hacker, their business may be severely disrupted. Moreover, there are regulations and specifications enforced by government or military requiring destruction of data before a disk drive is removed.
Data erasure software is largely divided into enterprise software and personal uses. If a company with 10,000 employees needs to replace computers for their employees every five years, 2000 computers need to be replaced annually. In this case, the IT department of the company needs an enterprise data erasure solution that is capable of erasing hundreds or thousands of computer disk drives at a high speed, monitoring data erasure processes, and generating reports.
Personal data erasure software targets personal users. A user plugs in a universal serial bus (USB) drive including the personal data erasure software into a computer and runs the software from the USB drive. However, personal data erasure software may not need features of the enterprise software such as reporting and management features. The personal data erasure software may not be a viable solution in an enterprise environment because a large number of computers are managed over the network. The data erasure for those computers cannot be done by connecting a USB drive to each of the computers, and the limited number of IT staff cannot manage the entire data erasure processes.